UKTV celebrates most watched day in its history and best Easter on record

30 March 2016

Sunday 27th March was UKTV's most successful day ever with 7.65% share

Drama achieved best week since launch with share of 1.38% and best day with 1.70%

UKTV Play enjoyed a 185% increase in views Easter-on-Easter

The UK's biggest multichannel broadcaster, UKTV, has celebrated its biggest Easter and most successful day in its 23-year history, with the 10 channel network achieving a record-breaking share of 7.65% on Sunday.

Official Barb data* shows UKTV's share over the Easter Bank holiday weekend was up 8% year-on-year, growing from 6.27% in 2015 to 6.78%. The record weekend stats followed the broadcaster's third most successful week since it launched, with the network achieving a share of 6.27% last week (week 12).

Really (0.69% share), Home (0.50% share) and Drama (1.47% share) all had their best Easters ever. Following Home's move into Freeview earlier this month, the channel enjoyed a massive +179% growth Easter-on-Easter. Other UKTV channels to see growth for the festive break year-on-year were Drama (+50%), Really (+17%) and Gold (+7%).

Drama, which is the UK's second most-watched non-PSB channel, had its best week since launch with a 1.38% share (week 12), as well as its best day (1.70%) on Saturday followed by its second best day on Sunday (1.60%). For Sunday, Drama was the top performing channel in Freeview, beating all non-terrestrials apart from ITV3.

W had its best day since its February launch on Sunday with 0.63% share, helped by action comedy film Men in Black, which took a 1.25% share.

Dave's Top Gear: Borswana Special was UKTV's top performing show, with the best rating episode attracting 400k viewers. Drama's The Inspector Lynley Mysteries was the second highest rating programme, which peaked with 381k on Saturday at 7pm.

UKTV's VOD services are also achieving record-breaking growth. The broadcaster's direct-to-consumer service, UKTV Play, enjoyed a 185% increase in views Easter-on-Easter, driven largely by a 90% growth on YouView and a 113% growth on mobile devices. The expansion of services, improved functionality, and growing library of quality content have all helped boost UKTV'S VOD performance in recent months.

END

About UKTV

UKTV is the biggest multichannel broadcaster in the UK.

The award-winning independent has eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, W, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food. These include the two most popular non-PSB channels in the UK and account for 9.31% of the British commercial TV market.

The company's most recent financial results showed record-breaking year-end revenue of £283m and EBITDA of £74.1m. It invested £123m in programming and related launches last year, and is becoming an increasingly significant investor in UK creativity.

UKTV has a truly innovative model, curating brand-defining commissions, high-profile acquisitions and the very best of BBC, alongside programmes originally shown on ITV and Channel 4. The network embraces technology to deliver inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT, TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat, Amazon Fire and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories.

Now celebrating its 22nd year at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI) - is proud to be the only British television broadcaster to be recognised by Best Companies.